


ask me to stay

by LadySilvertongue



Category: X-Men (Movies), X-Men: Apocalypse
Genre: Alternate Ending, Angst with a Happy Ending, Apocalypse spoilers, Erik is not a Happy Bunny, Fix-It, M/M, My First Work in This Fandom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-19
Updated: 2016-05-19
Packaged: 2018-06-09 09:54:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6901126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LadySilvertongue/pseuds/LadySilvertongue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What right did any of them have to deny themselves happiness? What right did Erik have to deny Charles his?</p>
            </blockquote>





	ask me to stay

**Author's Note:**

> Okay - so this is me in my post-apocalyptic catatonia. Luckily, I managed to self-medicate through writing this fic, and now I am in a state of semi-catharsis - gah! Honestly though, this is just me and my need for more cherik, because although all those scenes they had together were lovely, it was NOWHERE NEAR ENOUGH. I've been pining for forever - of course I'm not satisfied, and until there are more fanfics on here, I'll never be satisfied. For now... here ya go - and I hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed imagining this XD also, unbetad and I wrote this at like five am yesterday without any sleep - so any mistakes you can blame on me and my addled brain. XD

Erik didn’t even think about it.

Once En Sabah Nur was obliterated, he didn’t have time to dwell on what this meant for him, didn’t have time for the regret or the shame to fully set in, he didn’t even have time to realize what he was doing before he was propelling himself towards the house where Charles was at, bypassing the girl who stood on fucking air.

In the few short moments between the mutant-god’s disintegration and the silence that followed after it, nothing mattered more than seeing for himself that Charles was okay.

Somehow, confirming the telepath’s safety was the only way to ensure that it was well and truly over.

His feet crunched on the debris as he lowered himself onto the floor and took in what was happening. MacTaggert was hovering over Charles, arms taut, both hands clasped on the center of the man’s chest doing rhythmic compressions, calling out to the others with a voice pinched with alarm – and Erik realized she was screaming that the man was **_gone._**

**_Dead._ **

Heart squeezing painfully in his chest, Erik strode over, falling to his knees where the man lay and yanking the damned helmet from his head, not caring in the slightest where it landed as he willed it away. He hadn’t realized how much he was expecting to feel the sliver of the man’s consciousness against his, just enough to tell him that Charles was **_there_** – and he hadn’t expected the full blown panic that froze him once he realized there was nothing but silence and the frigid corners of his own mind.

Hands shaking, Erik grasped at the telepath’s shirt, pulling him forward and disrupting Moira’s attempts at restarting the man’s heart. A distant part of his mind raged at him for this – but the other part, the part that saw Charles’s closed and sunken eyes, his too pale face and bloodless lips, his stillness, the part that felt the cold nothingness inside his head –

**_“Charles.”_ **

It was the only thing he managed to get out before his emotions overtook him, not even noticing when Moira tried to pry Charles from his grasp. Erik snaked an arm around the man’s shoulders and shook him roughly, his voice coming out thick and wet,

“No. You can’t. Not you. You don’t get to do this to me!” Erik all but screamed, rocking slightly as he shook Charles again, the other’s head lolling lifelessly in the crook of his elbow. “Charles, don’t you dare do this to me! Wake up, damn you! _Atme!_ ”

He was yanked away and thrown back, and looking up he found that it was Beast that had hauled him off, checking the man’s vitals. Erik calmed minimally – at least Beast… at least Hank would know what to do.

Everyone was more or less there now, crowding inside the collapsed room as they too looked on; Beast, Mystique, the silver-haired boy and the new students, even Storm was there, though she hung back.

“Charles – he’s… he’s gone.”

Erik shuddered, not bothering to get up where he had landed as his heart pounded against his chest – as if it could beat hard enough for the both of them – for him and Charles. Tears welled up in his eyes without his knowing.

“He’s not gone. I can still feel him.” the red-haired girl said then, and she stepped forward, touching Charles’s cheek, attempting to call him back even when Erik couldn’t. When the telepath took a breath though, Erik almost sobbed with relief, slumping against the rubble and rubbing his face with his still-shaking hands.

He looked up only when he heard Moira asking Charles if he knew where he was – stupid… of course the man knew where he was. Charles was –

“I’m on a beach. In Cuba.”

Erik froze, and really, he shouldn’t have taken it as an affront against him, the man had literally just come back from death, maybe he was delirious. But then Charles was reaching his hand up, holding Moira’s face tenderly, almost caressing her cheek as he spoke,

“With you. I shouldn’t have taken those from you.”

And Erik… Erik just watched, his chest clenching painfully as Charles looked up at that damned woman as if she was the reason why he was alive, as if she was the light of his fucking life, as if Moira MacTaggert deserved all the love Charles had in him…

Erik’s thoughts stuttered to a halt, a traitorous voice in his mind telling him that she was. She was deserving of all that Charles had to give, and that Charles perhaps wanted to give it all to her too.

She stayed, after all.

The blue teleporter gasped then, flailing wildly, and the atmosphere cleared completely as breathless chuckles rose around. Erik stood upright with a jolt. All of these people deserved Charles – and he had come back for them. But not him. Never him. He turned away, getting his own rampant emotions under control. Their relief, their joy, their happiness – it was stifling. So stifling.

And really, where did Erik fit in all that?

He didn’t belong here – he was full of hatred, full of anger – broken… no – he was **_ruined_**. He always was, after mama died, maybe even before that, and that wretchedness hounded his every step. It always caught up to him no matter how hard he tried to get away, and it always left devastation in its wake – it would taint this too. The proof of it still surrounded them.

The ruined city, the marks left on the people there with him, the deaths he had no doubt caused all across the world, the deaths of his own family that still echoed in his mind – and for what? He’d played right into making apocalypse happen – had loaded the gun and all but pulled the trigger. Bent under the will of another dictator. Just like Shaw.

Erik always thought he’d known pain before, but it was nothing compared to the staggering realization that he never would be anything other than what he was made into.

A weapon.

A harbinger of death.

The very monster he hated.

**_“Erik.”_ **

Erik startled at the sound of his name, spoken with a sigh but with such warmth and fondness. There could only be one person who would still call him like that, and he felt like he’d swallowed bile. He did not deserve Charles. He never did.

He should just leave – leave now before it was too late and the wretchedness caught up.

“Erik, please.” Charles called again, and when Erik did turn back to look at him, he found that the others stood stock still, unblinking, and Erik knew, unseeing of this moment.

“Please.”

What was the man begging for? What more did he want that he didn’t already have?

“Erik, it’s alright. It’s alright, I promise – I swear it. We can work things out. Together.”

“You should hate me. Why don’t you just give in and hate me? It would be so much easier.”

Charles raised himself off of his back, and Erik shook with suppressed emotion when the man began dragging himself towards him, “Stop that. Stop it.” He bit out, but Charles refused to be dissuaded.

His hands clenched as he commanded metal scraps around them and formed it into something for the other man, gritting his teeth as he helped the telepath onto the makeshift wheelchair. The man had the gall to smile up at him, “Thank you, my friend.”

“Stop this. You’re only making it harder.”

“Erik...”

“I don’t need your pity! I don't need your charity! You’ve seen into my head, you know how many I’ve killed! I need you to _hate me!_ ” Charles didn’t answer, and Erik panted, feeling hot and cold all at the same time.

“Is that what you’re afraid of, my friend?”

Erik sank to his knees, wrapping his arms around the man’s waist as he struggled to get his breathing under control, eyes damp and shoulders shaking. “I don’t deserve you. I’m not what you believe I am. I can’t – I’m… nothing but a monster. I deserve your anger – your hatred.“

“Erik, nobody deserves that. Listen to me. **_Listen._** ” Erik looked up when the man cupped his face with both hands, seeing Charles’ eyes also taking on a bright sheen, the blue of them more pronounced. “I’ve told you, time and time again, there is goodness in you, and you’ve only proven that today. You are a good man. You’ve been through so much and yet you can look past all that pain, all that suffering. You have a capacity to love beyond measure, Erik, and I’m so, so sorry that it hasn’t been paid back in full.”

By the time Charles had finished his piece, both of them had spilled tears, and the others were released from their stillness, gasping and blinking warily, alert and ready to fight until they saw the professor with him.

“Come home, Erik.” Charles asked then, smiling, albeit a bit broken, but no less radiant.

The hope in the telepath’s eyes then, the way with which he cradled Erik’s head in his hands, the way his breaths fanned over Erik’s cheeks, the way Erik felt the warmth and comfort radiate from the man’s mind, the devotion –

Could he really walk away from this?

 

 

Charles looked on as the mansion was reconstructed, bit by bit coming together at Jean and Erik’s command, and when it was done, he could no longer put off the thoughts that invaded his mind. It had been a struggle to convince Erik to even come back with them – and Charles knew it would take nothing short of a miracle to convince the man to stay.

They had herded the students inside, recuperated for all but one day before getting busy again.

There were so many things that needed to be done; he needed to give Alex a proper burial, and Angel as well – the poor boy, he needed to deal with the CIA when they came looking for him, he needed to deal with the students and their parents, deal with world leaders asking him to answer for the whole catastrophe, he needed to deal with Moira, with Raven… with **_Erik._**

Charles needn’t have worried after all, though.

“They’ll want me locked up. If not executed. You’ll never be safe with me here. You and your children. Tell me, Charles, does it ever wake you in the middle of the night? The feeling that one day, they’ll come for you? And your children?” Erik asked one evening in the quiet confines of their study, a chess match already drawing to a close between them in favour of the other man.

“I feel a great swell of pity for the poor soul who comes to my school looking for trouble.”

“Checkmate.” Erik muttered after moving his bishop, and after analysing the board, Charles smiled and shook his head. Damn.

“Ask me to stay.” Charles startled, looking up to see Erik staring right back at him, his face a blank mask but his mind a whirlwind of emotions.

Charles sighed and acquiesced, a quiet understanding passing between them. “Stay.”

He leaned forward then, urging Erik to come closer as well. When there was but an inch of space between them, Charles closed his eyes and brushed his lips over the man’s own, too chaste – not even a real kiss.

“Stay with me.” He breathed, opening his eyes to see Erik’s open-mouthed shock. “I want you by my side, Erik.” He said, echoing the man’s words more than a decade ago, “Believe me when I say that.”

“It won’t be easy.”

“No, it won’t.”

That was an understatement, if there ever was one. Too much had happened between them for anything to ever be easy, but Charles was willing to fight tooth and nail to keep the man by his side. The world didn’t know what to do with such a brilliant mind, and he didn’t either, if he was being honest… but he would keep Erik from falling into that darkness again.

“Stay with me.” Charles prompted once more.

And instead of answering, Erik kissed him again.

Yes. He needn't worry anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> Though that did not soothe my cherik feels all that much, it was nice to get it out. I need to read other works - tons and tons and tons of other works... alas, there aren't any yet (but if there are someone pls point me to the right direction haha). Thanks to anyone who took the time to read this :) drop a kudos or a comment or anything at all :) :) :) - and if anyone wants to chat or vent (because I know I need to XD i'm selfish, yeah?), you can go drop a message at my tumblr! http://ladylehnsherr.tumblr.com/


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